Friday, June 4, 2004YEAH ... IT'S ALL ABOUT ABU GHRAIB Do you realize that at this point the story of the abuse of some Iraqi
prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison has received more press coverage for a longer
period of time than did the story of the capture of Saddam Hussein? And
just why is that? Come on, haven't you been listening? It's because
the media believes the story of Abu Ghraib hurts George Busy, while the
story of the capture of Saddam Hussein helps George Bush. You heard what Democrat Billionaire George Soros was up to yesterday, didn't
you? Soros is the money behind such leftist anti-Bush organizations as
MoveOn.org. He was speaking yesterday before the leftist Campaign for
America's Future .. .introduced by The Hildabeast. Soros, of course,
launched immediately into condemnation of Bush for the Abu Ghraib story. Now ... get this. This should illustrate the depth of the mindlessness that
has been brought on by the obsessive Bush hatred of the left. Soros says
that the pictures from Abu Ghraib " .. hit us the same way as the terrorist
attack itself." Three thousand people died in the attacks on the World Trade Towers and the
Pentagon. If any of the prisoners died from the abuse at the Abu Ghraib
prison, I missed the story. Soros looks at pictures of bodies
falling to the streets around the World Trade Towers; at pictures of the
wreckage of an American Airlines jet in Pennsylvania, and at pictures of the
burning Pentagon, and tells us that these pictures are no worse than the
pictures of naked Iraqi men wearing women's panties on their heads.
Soros also repeated the Democratic lie yesterday that there was no connection
between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, and that there were no weapons of mass
destruction. Don't bother Soros with the facts, he has hatred to nurture.
I hope you've been keeping up with James
Taranto's Best of the Web column every afternoon. With the help of his
readers Taranto has been gathering examples of how hard the media works to
hammer the Abu Ghraib story each and every day. A newspaper or wire
service will run a story that has no direct connection to the Abu Ghraib
situation. Then, in the middle some paragraph an editor or writer will
insert a gratuitous reference to Abu Ghraib .. just to keep the story out
there. Here are some examples from just this week. - From an Associated Press dispatch about the Supreme Court case involving
enemy combatant Jose Padilla: "Similarly, the images of prisoner abuse
at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq are not part of another important
case this term testing the legal rights of detainees at another
U.S.-operated prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."
- From a New York Times review of "The Great Game" by Frederick
Hitz, a book about the CIA: "In 1982, shortly before he volunteered
information to the Soviets, some bitter wag at the C.I.A. put up a poster
describing the 'Six Phases of a U.S. Government Sponsored Covert Action.'
They were listed as enthusiasm, disillusionment, panic, search for the
guilty, punishment of the innocent, and praise and honor for the
nonparticipants. That may well describe the response to revelations about
Abu Ghraib prison and undisclosed activities carried out by the C.I.A. and
Special Forces in furtherance of 'the war on terror.' " The
Reuterian scare quotes around war on terror are an added fillip.
- From a Reuters dispatch about President Bush's visit with "one of his
harshest critics," a certain John Paul II: "In the pope's remarks
last Thursday, the pontiff did not mention Iraq but it was the first time he
has spoken specifically about torture since photographs of U.S. soldiers
abusing Iraqis in Abu Ghraib prison emerged last month."
- From a New York Times story on John Kerry's slogan, "Let America be
America again": "The phrase has surfaced at a time of outrage over
the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, aides noted, and on Thursday in
Seattle, Mr. Kerry used it again to articulate his differences from Mr. Bush
on foreign policy."
- And from an Associated Press article on nonlethal weapons--those that aim
only to immobilize the enemy: "But in an era of secret interrogations
of al-Qaida suspects and revelations of U.S. abuse of prisoners at Iraq's
Abu Ghraib prison, Executive Director Doug Johnson of the Minneapolis-based
Center for Torture Victims is skeptical."
- Sunday's Times features an article on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's
commencement speech at West Point. It reports that the address "made no
mention of the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq."
That didn't stop the Times from mentioning it..
- The Monday Times profiles the late First Lt. Therrel Shane Childers of
Powell, Wyo., who died in combat in Iraq last year. "Lieutenant
Childers died too soon to see the strife in Iraq today, or the photographs
of prisoners being humiliated at the hands of American guards in the Abu
Ghraib prison," the Times points out.
Sooner or later we're going to see a story in The New York Times about some
episode of criminality that takes place in Manhattan. The Times editors
will insert something like this: "The pictures of the crime scene
were not unlike pictures of smiling U.S. reservists next to the body of an Iraqi
at the Abu Ghraib prison." Just wait. NOW ... HERE'S A LITTLE WAGER FOR YOU We have a D-Day anniversary coming up this weekend. I'll bet you that
somewhere in some story in one of our leading newspapers, or on some newscast on
a major television network, you're going to see someone insert a reference to
the Abu Ghraib prison story right smack-dab into the middle of a story about the
valor of the American men and women who landed on the beaches of Normandy 60
years ago. FIGHTING WORLD WAR II WITH TODAY'S MEDIA Have you ever wondered how the leftist reporters of today's mainstream media
would report on the D-Day allied invasion of Europe? Someone named William
A. Mayer gave it a shot ... here's what he wrote: If D-Day Had Been Reported On Today by William A. Mayer Tragic French Offensive Stalled on Beaches (Normandy, France - June
6, 1944) - Pandemonium, shock and sheer terror predominate today's
events in Europe. In an as yet unfolding apparent fiasco, Supreme Allied Commander,
Gen. Dwight David Eisenhower's troops got a rude awakening this morning
at Omaha Beach here in Normandy. Due to insufficient planning and lack of a workable entrance
strategy, soldiers of the 1st and 29th Infantry as well as Army
Rangers are now bogged down and sustaining heavy casualties inflicted on
them by dug-in insurgent positions located 170 feet above them on cliffs
overlooking the beaches which now resemble blood soaked killing fields
at the time of this mid-morning filing. Bodies, parts of bodies, and blood are the order of the day here, the
screams of the dying and the stillness of the dead mingle in testament
to this terrible event. Morale can only be described as extremely poor--in some companies all
the officers have been either killed or incapacitated, leaving only
poorly trained privates to fend for themselves. Things appear to be going so poorly that Lt. General Omar Bradley has
been rumored to be considering breaking off the attack entirely. As we
go to press embattled U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt's
spokesman has not made himself available for comment at all, fueling
fires that something has gone disastrously awry. The government at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is in a distinct lock-down
mode and the Vice President's location is presently and officially
undisclosed. Whether the second in command should have gone into hiding during
such a crisis will have to be answered at some future time, but many
agree it does not send a good signal. Miles behind the beaches and adding to the chaos, U.S. Naval gunships
have inflicted many friendly fire casualties, as huge high explosive
projectiles rain death and destruction on unsuspecting Allied positions.
The lack of training of Naval gunners has been called into question
numerous times before and today's demonstration seems to underlie those
concerns. At Utah Beach the situation is also grim, elements of the 82nd and
101st Airborne seemed to be in disarray as they missed their primary
drop zones behind the area believed to comprise the militant's front
lines. Errant paratroopers have been hung up in trees, breaking arms and
legs, rendering themselves easy targets for those defending this
territory. On the beach front itself the landing area was missed, catapulting
U.S. forces nearly 2,000 yards South of the intended coordinates, thus
placing them that much farther away from the German insurgents and
unable to direct covering fire or materially add to the operation. Casualties at day's end are nothing short of horrific; at least 8,000
and possibly as many as 9,000 were wounded in the haphazardly
coordinated attack, which seems to have no unifying purpose or
intent. Of this number at least 3,000 have been estimated as
having been killed, making June 6th by far, the worst single day of the
war which has dragged on now--with no exit strategy in sight--as the
American economy still struggles to recover from Herbert Hoover's
depression and its 25% unemployment. Military spending has skyrocketed the national debt into uncharted
regions, lending another cause for concern. When and if the current
hostilities finally end it may take generations for the huge debt to be
repaid. On the planning end of things, experts wonder privately if enough
troops were committed to the initial offensive and whether at least
another 100,000 troops should have been added to the force structure
before such an audacious undertaking. Communication problems also have
made their presence felt making that an area for further investigation
by the appropriate governmental committees. On the home front, questions and concern have been voiced. A
telephone poll has shown dwindling support for the wheel-chair bound
Commander In Chief, which might indicate a further erosion of support
for his now three year-old global war. Of course, the President's precarious health has always been a
question. He has just recently recovered from pneumonia and speculation
persists whether or not he has sufficient stamina to properly sustain
the war effort. This remains a topic of furious discussion among those
questioning his competency. Today's costly and chaotic landing compounds the President's already
large credibility problem. More darkly, this phase of the war, commencing less than six months
before the next general election, gives some the impression that
Roosevelt may be using this offensive simply as a means to secure
re-election in the fall. Underlining the less than effective Allied attack, German
casualties--most of them innocent and hapless conscripts--seem not to be
as severe as would be imagined. A German minister who requested
anonymity stated categorically that "the aggressors were being
driven back into the sea amidst heavy casualties, the German people seek
no wider war." "The news couldn't be better," Adolph Hitler said when he
was first informed of the D-Day assault earlier this afternoon. "As long as they were in Britain we couldn't get at them. Now we
have them where we can destroy them." German minister Goebbels had been told of the Allied airborne
landings at 0400 hours. "Thank God, at last," he said. "This is the final
round." |
SORRY ... SOLD OUT Well, that didn't take long. Within just an hour or so of our
announcement that we were going to be doing the Information Overload Hour from
the Capital Grille next Wednesday, the tickets were gone. So ... if you
were a little late trying to get a ticket to be there, don't forget to
listen. Should be a great deal of fun. Guests are already lining up. THE LATEST ON O.J.  Have
you heard about OJ's interview on Fox? This murdering jerk says that
sometimes he gets mad at Nicole for hanging out with a bad crowd. Hey, OJ,
you bastard! YOU were the bad crowd. He also says that he's going to
do a TV reality show where he plays practical jokes. Does he mean
practical jokes like cutting women's heads off? Bastard! And who
made the decision at Fox to put this miserable piece of dog squeeze on the air
anyway?
TENET CAN'T QUIT FOR PERSONAL REASONS
CIA Director George Tenet resigned yesterday, effective July 11th. Appointed by
President Clinton, he had been on the job since becoming the interim director in
December of 1996. Liberals are out for blood over the Tenet resignation, unable
to accept the fact that the man just may have had enough and decided to move on.
Apparently he's supposed to be some sort of fall guy over the situation in Iraq.
The media has been calling for his head for months...and now he finally quits,
and they're lamenting that he is quitting at "a critical time in the war
against terrorism." The leftist vultures won't give anyone a break.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Tenet said "It was a personal decision, and had only one basis in fact: the
well being of my wonderful family, nothing more and nothing less." Of
course, like the conspiracy theorists that believe Humpty Dumpty was pushed,
Democrats came out of the woodwork wondering what the real reasons were, and
questioning whether he was pushed out. Some are even calling Tenet a scapegoat.
But really, if that were the case, wouldn't he be gone already?
If Tenet were a scapegoat, President Bush would have fired him a long time ago.
Didn't happen. In fact, Bush said "I told him I'm sorry he's leaving. He's
done a superb job on behalf of the American people." The left can't stand
this...there must be some hidden reason, some conspiracy...it can't just be that
he's leaving and the president doesn't want him to. Where's the rest of the
story?
Senator Dianne Feinstein said "I suspect there is going to be more of a
story to tell than just personal reasons." Others theorized that Tenet had
been "pushed out." No wonder people don't like to serve in
government...you can't even quit without people tearing you down in the press.
Some are saying that Tenet's resignation is because a big report from the Senate
intelligence committee is about to come about faulting the CIA for intelligence
failures with regard to Iraq. This all comes to the WMD issue...which is a
ridiculous. Saddam had them, used them, and we've even found some. So
what...they're not massive stockpiles. Who's to say they weren't hidden? And
what if we eventually do find them?
One more thing...if Tenet did such a terrible job, then how's come we haven't
had another terrorist attack on the United States since 9/11?
THE BILL CLINTON MEDIA MAKEOVER
Get ready for the media onslaught....Bill Clinton's memoirs are being released
June 22, and it's already started. Bill Clinton will be on 60 Minutes, as well
as a nationwide tour pushing his book. The Poodle's campaign is not pleased, but
what can they do? Absolutely nothing. Clinton could have chosen to release his
book after the election ... he could have, but he didn't. Do you think there
wasn't a plan at work here? You got it! Clinton is out to steal sKerry's
thunder. Remember, the Clintons don't want The Poodle to win...they want George
Bush to be re-elected so the Hildabeast can run for in an open election in 2008.
Yesterday, speaking at a booksellers convention, Clinton said "I don't
spare myself in this book." Well, isn't that nice. Hopefully he'll spare
the rest of us. Will he tell how he turned down the direct handover of Osama Bin
Laden on several occasions? I doubt it. How about the Monica Lewinsky fiasco?
How much of that will he tell us? The book is after all, a thousand pages.
One other thing, at that speech yesterday, check out what Clinton said about the
current president: "If you go back and read what Bush said in the campaign,
he's just doing what he said he'd do. You've got to give him credit for
that...no one has the whole truth." You're not going to hear that repeated
in the media very much, if at all. Is that just a Clinton attempt to put Bush in
a better light? Sure doesn't help Kerry much, does it?
Brace yourself...the media is about to become all Clinton, all the time. Too bad
for The Poodle, though. He just lost the spotlight for the summer.
THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC
This looks like the latest media obsession....the obesity epidemic. Fat kids,
fat teens, fat young people, fat old people, fat drivers, fat workers...you name
it. Everybody is getting fat. Of course, in its never-ending mission to find the
"root cause" of the nation's ills, the media is trying to find a way
to blame somebody or something.
So what is the culprit? To hear the TV news shows tell it, it must be poverty!
That's right...not having enough to eat is officially to blame for being too
fat! If it's not that, it must be the video games! Soda machines in school! Long
commutes in the car! Anything but the person actually shoving it in. After all,
people can't be responsible for their actions. Everyone is a victim...and no one
bears any responsibility for their condition.
The answer to the obesity epidemic is for people to stop eating so damn much,
stay away from fast food restaurants, and actually get off their asses and go
for a walk once in awhile.
MEDIA STICKING ENRON TO BUSH
An audiotape has surfaced in which Enron energy traders openly talk about
manipulating California's power market during the energy crisis which began in
2000. On the tape, they talk about creating congestion on transmission lines and
taking generating units offline to pump up electricity prices. In short, they
were either joking, or they are criminals that will probably be prosecuted. So
what is the media's response to all this?
It's President Bush's fault!
That's right...liberals and the media have been blaming the Enron collapse,
including everything that happened there, on George Bush for years. After all,
Enron contributed to Bush's campaign, and it's a Texas company, so it must have
been Bush's fault. If people really want to blame Enron's California shenanigans
on a politician, they need to get their timeline straight. The President of the
United States when the California energy crisis began was Bill Clinton.
But really, the politician to blame was the one California voters bounced out of
office last year, Governor Gray Davis. He's the one most responsible for the
horrid energy policy in that state that resulted in the rolling blackouts.
President Bush did not work at Enron. It is a Bush-hating, liberal media fantasy
to make him responsible for the Enron collapse. READING ASSIGNMENTS Mike Adams is one of my heroes ... a conservative college professor making
life miserable for the bedwetters at UNC Wilmington. Adam's
target this week:? The English Department at Cornell. As you think about D-Day, and the incredible sacrifice of so many men on that
day, you might want to read this article from Charles Krauthammer. Krauthammer
wants the impossible ... rational thought from the media. Well
... I'm at it today. I doubt, though, that this week's townhall.com
column is going to get the attention that last week's did. Just for grins.
Send him an email and tell him how cute he is. Democrats ... on
the verge of the paranormal. The war in Iraq is going so well that liberals are having to rewrite history
to wage any campaign against Bush at all! This
from Ann Coulter. This is for those of you who think that our economy isn't doing all that
well. Do
you dare read this column? Do you ever read "News
of the Weird?" Clinton
is on his book tour now! Anyone hearing anything about The Poodle
lately? Spend some "quality time," whatever that is, with
Neal Boortz in Jacksonville! What
is possibly the worst major government school system in the entire free world?
That would be none other than the Atlanta "public" schools. Just
read this to see what my neighbors are suffering through. Another story from Atlanta ... this
one about the arrogance of public officials. I've been talking about
the mindless actions of the Georgia Department of Transportation for a few days
now ... here's a story. Woman charged for stabbing
man with her nail file for singing too loud. Man almost dies trying
to use garden hose as a snorkel while retrieving his keys from a lake. Artist makes a bed
of ham. Ohio store owner cleared
in death of career criminal who tried to rob him. |
Neal Boortz's Latest Tweets
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